[BCMA] Book Signing at the Creston Museum

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.]

You've seen this photograph before - it's the famous one of Donald Smith
driving the last spike on the Canadian Pacific Railway at Craigellachie, in
1885.  Have you ever noticed the young man, crowding his way to the front
and peering around Mr. Smith as he pounds in that last spike?

 

That is Edward Mallandaine, seventeen years old at the time and in the midst
of the first adventure of his young life.  He'd recently left his
comfortable family home in Victoria to join the Canadian militia fighting
Louis Riel in the North-West Rebellion of 1885.  He never made it to
Saskatchewan, though - the rebellion there was over by the time Edward
reached New Westminster.  Instead, he made his way to Revelstoke, and talked
his way into a job riding dispatches between the various camps and small
communities on the nearly-completed railway.

 

Less than a decade later, Edward Mallandaine was in Creston.  He was one of
the original settlers; he helped establish the first fire department and the
first post office, and he owned the first waterworks system.  He served on
the board of trade, on the school board, as reeve, and as the local
magistrate. As land agent for the CPR, he helped bring in many new settlers
to the Creston Valley.

 

The Boy in the Picture recounts Edward Mallandaine's trek from the bustle of
the city of Victoria to the wilds of the interior of British Columbia,
"along tote roads and the newly laid tracks of the railway, past 'hostess
houses' and 'Chinese joss houses,' into hotels crowded with rough
characters, through mountain passes filled with beautiful scenery, and into
the lawlessness of remote towns and railway camps."

 

Author Ray Argyle was raised in Creston.  He writes, "I had the privilege of
knowing Edward when he was a very old man and I was a young boy.  Growing
up, we lived in a house he'd built and I looked forward to him coming around
every month to collect the rent from my dad.  That's when he'd tell me
stories of his exploits."

 

Ray Argyle will be at the Creston Museum to sign copies of They Boy in the
Picture, from 1:00 to 4:00 PM on Tuesday, August 17.  The book retails at
$19.99.

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tammy Hardwick, Manager

Creston & District Museum & Archives

219 Devon Street, Creston, BC V0B 1G3

Phone 250-428-9262

www.creston.museum.bc.ca

 

Find
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Creston-BC/Creston-Museum/43713996628?ref=ts>
us on Facebook!

 

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